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OSLO May 27 (Reuters) - A decline in the diversity of
farmed plants and livestock breeds is gathering pace,
threatening future food supplies for the world's growing
population, the head of a new United Nations panel on
biodiversity said on Monday.

Preserving neglected animal breeds and plants was necessary
as they could have genes resistant to future diseases or to
shifts in the climate to warmer temperatures, more droughts or
downpours, Zakri Abdul Hamid said.

"The loss of biodiversity is happening faster and
everywhere, even among farm animals," Zakri told a conference of
450 experts in Trondheim, central Norway, in his first speech as
founding chair of the U.N. biodiversity panel.

Many traditional breeds of cows, sheep or goats have fallen
out of favour, often because they yield less meat or milk than
new breeds. Globalisation also means that people's food
preferences narrow down to fewer plants.

Zakri said there were 30,000 edible plants but that just 30
crops accounted for 95 percent of the energy in human food that
is dominated by rice, wheat, maize, millet and sorghum.

He said it was "more important than ever to have a large
genetic pool to enable organisms to withstand and adapt to new
conditions." That would help to ensure food for a global
population set to reach 9 billion by 2050 from 7 billion now.

Zakri noted that the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture
Organization estimated last year that 22 percent of the world's
livestock breeds were at risk of extinction. That means there
are fewer than 1,000 animals in each breed.

The extinctions of some domesticated animals and plants was
happening in tandem with accelerating losses of wild species
caused by factors such as deforestation, expansion of cities,
pollution and climate change, he said.

Many nations had started breeding programmes for rare
livestock, from llamas to pigs. Some were freezing embryos or
even stem cells that might be used in cloning, she said.

In 2010, governments set goals including halting extinction
of known threatened species by 2020 and expanding the area set
aside in parks or protected areas for wildlife to 17 percent of
the Earth's land surface from about 13 percent now.
(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)